K-1 World Grand Prix Japan was looking to return K-1 to its roots with a heavyweight tournament at year’s end this year. That is exactly what happened, although the question is if they were successful or not in recreating the magic of past K-1’s. The short answer is no, the long answer is that they are essentially starting over and it’ll take time. The pool of talent that they had to choose from wasn’t as robust as it was prior, due to exclusive contracts elsewhere, leading to a few recognizable names in the tournament, but not as many as fans would like to see.

This tournament was not lacking in action, though, as the first round of the tournament saw nothing but round one knock outs. In fact, so did the next round, with the only tournament fight going to a decision being the final between Antonio Palizbat and Ibrahim El Bouni. Palizbat was able to walk away with the decision and K-1 Japan now has a heavyweight champion.

Also in action was Yoshiki Takei, who knocked out Victor Saravia in round one, Minoru Kimura, who edged out Yasuhiro Kido and Koya Ruabe who defeated Cristian Spetcu.